89 Inbound Marketing Tactics from Mozcon 2013 Day 3

MozCon 2013 is in the books and day 3 brought everything to a close in fitting fashion. The highlight for me was the presentation by Wil Reynolds. Last year he introduced his RCS (Google it) idea and set the SEO world ablaze with ideas of how to shift marketing focus away from search rankings and towards doing real-world stuff that matters.

This year Wil elaborated on the theme and backed up his cause with facts and how-to tips everyone can use. He refined his talk to emphasize the importance of perfecting your pitch. Good stuff. If you aren’t following Wil, you need to start.

MozCon 2013 Day 3: A Day of Inbound Marketing Tactics

Day 3 also brought us a great presentation from Rand about how to make marketing better, from Carrie Gouldin on how to do social smarter and several others that gave awesome inbound marketing tactics that anybody can understand and use.

From what to test in social marketing to how to improve the culture of your workplace, you can find it all in the 89 inbound marketing tactics listed below.

Using Metrics to Build Social Media Engagement

Carrie Gouldin

1. Be timely with your posts – old information loses most of its value
2. Be informative
3. Make the content useful
4. Be entertaining
5. Don’t focus entirely on your own products
6. Don’t use follower metrics as a goal – it doesn’t really mean anything
7. Look at engagement rates to see real performance – mentions, comments, favorites, etc.
8. Use tracking code to see all relevant activity, such as conversions
9. Social ROI takes the form of

Branding strength

Customer Loyalty

Customer evangelism & recruitment

Customer feedback

10. Continuously test what works on a given social network – best frequency, time of day, day of week, etc.
11. Be aware of how your images are being displayed on Facebook – images may get cropped in a less than ideal way so plan ahead
12. Link to the best part of a YouTube video clip using &t=1m5s
13. Skip to the meat of an article with anchor links
14. Don’t overdo hashtags
15. Dress up your icon for holidays and special occasions
16. Go to newsworthy events and provide first-hand information
17. Know the news before you post
18. Ask how you’re doing – customers love this

The Search for Company Culture and Why It Matters

Sarah Bird

19. Create value statements – they are real company $#!t
20. Focus on effective communication, it’s the foundation of good company culture
21. Don’t create a good culture for the ROI – it needs to be about developing a healthy and happy culture above anything else
22. Be authentic – if you’re not true to yourself and others, you can’t fake it
23. Be generous – if you are generous of time, spirit, forgiveness, etc. the entire team will benefit
24. Don’t be afraid of fun
25. Everyone needs to be on board – one rotten apple can ruin the bunch
26. Beware of the victim trap – work together to keep team members away from a victim mentality
27. Plant lots of positive seeds through personal commitment
28. Start with yourself and spread the positivity from there
29. Don’t be afraid to fail – you can’t control everything so focus on what you can
30. Collect and share resources

Why the Internet Hates Us and Can #RCS Change That Perception?

Wil Reynolds

31. Don’t just change your title – change your ways
32. Do content you love vs. doing content for SEO
33. Be better at your pitchs – show the value of the work you do as an SEO
34. Don’t try to be everything to everybody
35. Don’t keep doing the same old thing you’ve always done
36. Focus on innovation, not “volume”
37. Don’t say “my clients don’t do RCS” – what you’re really saying is “I don’t know how to pitch”
38. Know who’s feeding who – get on major news sites by learning who feeds them news
39. Realize that strategies don’t hit homeruns
40. Track competitors email newsletters – find out when they are pushing the companies you’re targeting
41. Push your emails (using gmail) to Evernote to keep them organized and ready for action

Building Your Community From the Ground Up

Jen Lopez

42. Be passionate about something – nothing will excel like the things you’re passionate about
43. Engage with your community on-line, off-line and off-site
44. Having a goal of more followers is OK – you have to start somewhere
45. It’s not about the tools, it’s about how you use them
46. Tap into your own team to find influencers who can move you into a bigger community
47. Do research – make smart choices based on research
48. Check in on your competitors – leading from the front doesn’t mean ignoring what your competitors are doing
49. Start small, then grow as you are able
50. Focus your efforts
51. Tell your story – it will help people connect with you and will show your personality

10 Link Removal Pro-Tips That Will Change Your Life

Shah Menz

52. Create a separate inbox at the target domain and turn spam filters off
53. Identify directory sites you want to remove links from and serve them a 404 status via .htaccess
54. Get to know sites that don’t accept email and go right to the submission form
55. Be grateful when you discover that ArticleSnatch is amongst the list you are dealing with – this site is cooperative
56. WordPress hosted blogs do have a default email address
57. Write your link removal request as you would write an email to a potential new customer
58. Know your TLD – some countries have laws and agencies in place that can compel a site to remove your link
59. Lodge a spam report to have egregious spam removed
60. You are asking for favors – the occasional cookie and cupcake can’t hurt

How To Be a One-Person Link Building Army

Mike Arnesen

61. Leverage tools, processes and relationships to build likes effectively
62. Make your link building tactics agile, efficient and open to the unexpected
63. Use IFTTT and Page2Rss to find out when your competition is getting a new link
64. Use Google alerts to find link building opportunities
65. User FreshWebExplorer
66. Send hand-written notes to connect on a personal level
67. Use HARO – don’t wait for the perfect request, branch out to related topics
68. Set up Twitter notifications for people you are trying to connect with
69. Use AuthorCrawler to find people writing for competitors sites, but not yours yet, then reach out to them
70. Remember that people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it
71. Believe you can be a one-person link building army

Throw Out Best Practices, Double Email Conversion

A. Litsa

72. Create your email template and landing page for smart phone users (using responsive)
73. Find the channels on your site that get more mobile traffic and target those with mobile-optimized emails
74. Start with low-risk engagements to test what works

Kelsey Libert

75. Create viral success by creating emotionally compelling content
76. Create highly visual campaigns to tap emotions
77. Use the power of the emotional exchange – it’s like when you smile at someone and they smile back without even thinking about it
78. The most viral content are most often the ones that elicit the most emotion
79. Provide high production value
80. Target the people that already have your target audience

The Secret Ingredient of Better Marketing

Rand Fishkin

81. Let your influence define your role, not the other way around
82. Be mindful of your audience
83. Stop optimizing for search results
84. Stop neglecting a strategic vision and only focusing on tactics
85. Be transparent in your marketing
86. Use what others hide out of fea, make it transparent as use it as a strength
87. Use honesty to surprise your audience
89. Be authentic in your marketing

David is a Digital Marketing Strategist at Blast Analytics & Marketing. David spends his days immersed in the world of SEO, link building and digital marketing and loves when his mind gets blown by a new way of seeing something.

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